Tag Archives: history

Stefanie Fiore has a stunning 10-photograph series that captures homes of Italian-Canadian families in their everyday garishness. Decorative wallpapers sandwich ornate furniture, gaudy photographs, and miscellaneous trinkets. Inanimate objects serve as subtle storytellers of history and social change. Posh or gaudy? Regal or cluttered? It honestly becomes hard to decide, but these photographs certainly capture...Read...

Works That Disturb is an exhibition that continues through March 27th, 2010 at the Alphonse Berber in Berkeley, California. It certainly features some disturbing, wonderful things. Annie McKnight‘s Untitled features bracelets made of… taxidermied mice. “Kim Ye‘s living sculptures connect artist and model, work and world in a collaborative act of animation. Crafted of...Read...

"If I get a little burnt out on the visual art and hand-rendering thing, I can kind of chill out and go into music... it's still exercising the mind in the same way -- just on a totally different platform."

“I can’t really explain why it is that I focus my art on such deviant topics, other than maybe that they are such a draw [because they are] the deviancy that appeals as a dark side to our civilized side.”

A vacation in Paris inspired Czech artist Miroslav Sasek to create children’s travel guides to big cities around the world. Illustrated in Sasek’s signature watercolor style, these large-format books from the ’60s are a timestamp in history and an interesting addition to any bookshelf. Sasek may have passed away in 1980, but his art lives...Read...

One of my favorite films of the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival, The Wave is based off of a true story. Although the actual story takes place in Palo Alto, California, the film takes place in Germany.Teacher Rainier Wenger receives “autocracy” for his project week theme, instead of “anarchy,” as he previously wanted. A generally...Read...

Savage Grace is a tale about the incestuous relationship of a mother and her homosexual son. The entire film is an ever-deepening downwards spiral that is disturbing to watch. Yet, like a car accident, the viewer cannot help but be interested by the dysfunction; it’s twisted to watch, but it’s interesting. Savage Grace is a...Read...

Spain, 2007, 114 minutes, 35mm English I wanted to like Goya’s Ghosts. The previews had made it out to look like the film was centrally focused on controversy about Goya’s work and life, when in fact Goya’s presence was merely a fleeting tangent. That was the first noticeable turnoff of the movie, and the first...Read...